


The Raven's Pick

by Askell



Category: The Walking Dead (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Medieval, Alternate Universe - Vikings, Blind Character, Dark, Eerie ambiance, Fairytale feeling, Ghosts, Gods, Hermit!Daryl, Jarl!Rick, M/M, Multi, Paranormal, Rickyl Writers' Group, Seer!Daryl, Slavery, Vikings
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-11-08
Updated: 2017-11-08
Packaged: 2019-01-31 02:33:25
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 4,491
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12666492
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Askell/pseuds/Askell
Summary: Have you heard of the Hermit in the forest and his little eyes? Seeking help among men and finding none, you can bet your life with him or with the Norns.Rick’s father had known this saga wouldn’t be his.In which Jarl Grimes embarks a blind outcast on his raids, and ends up docking on the chiseled shores of destiny.





	1. Prelude

Have you heard of the Hermit and his little eyes? Have you seen them stroll in town when the day dies? Mothers say “do not look into these eyes, not his nor hers ; bad luck is on its way”. Fathers forbid taunts and jokes and plays, “beware”, they say, “of the Hermit and his little eyes”.

If you wander in the hours the gods forgot, somewhere between dawn or dusk or when the moon is not, you can see them in town walking around. She is sweet as the sweetest honey, small in her furs and smaller her hand in his. He is tall and broad and blind ; some say trolls mixed his blood with an ancient oak’s sap. 

Seeking help among men and finding none, you can bet your life with him or with the Norns. When women struggle to bring life on earth, when members are torn, when love is nowhere to be found or when battles need to be stopped, they seek his lone abode. You have to walk a mile and maybe two, deep in the forest and deeper in the frost. You have to seek and wonder and get lost. Only then, if the gods favor your quest, can you find the Hermit’s hut.

Men or women are fools, if to seek help they do not bring food. Bring beef for a boy, doe for a girl, dark yarn for curses and white wool for love, amber for riches and coal for work. Never bring feathers. They do not belong to you. 

You could live a life and your children too, even theirs could ignore such a sight of the Hermit and the little girl walking at night. Most men tended to avoid these empty streets and their shadows. Even the strongest warriors knew not to bother what dwells in the dark, what withers in the morning, what fears the sunlight. 

Crones talked as they spun the finest yarn, of that fateful night of wails in the burnt farm. Their old eyes still saw the tall flames and the powerless men, as the farmer cried out for his wife. None ignored there was no love in her rounded belly, all pitied the unborn child. His brother already bigger than a mount, roasted his arms in his desperate rage. Seeing red and ignoring all, he had jumped in the smoke to retrieve his mother. 

When the sky’s jewels paled to the sun’s renewal, silent had fallen on the land. When all thought the heat had claimed three lives, he emerged. Tall and dark and those blood-red blue eyes, clutching a small package in his sizzled arms. No hair grew on him anymore, as he retreated in the woods to raise a brother he never showed to anyone. 

People talked and talked and tried to peek. “Her memory is insulted,” they spat and squealed. “No son of man or woman, torn from his mother’s womb in the deep of dark, can live among us pretending to be human. This is no boy, the stillborn infant a gift to the fae, they cursed us with one of theirs.” The fae-child, the doppelganger. 

Growing like a vine they wanted to tear, the Hermit could have been spared many tears. A a cripple living off charity and the Jarl’s clemency, he could have become a skald at best. Stories his trade, a harp in his agile hands, he could have even become a man. 

But the boy saw death and births in his mind’s eye. He predicted storms and foresaw betrothals, could tell secrets and reveal lies. His sight may have been claimed by the dark, the Jeweled-Bearer favored him still as She gave him insight. 

Rick’s father had known this saga wouldn’t be his. Jarl of the Madsland, he had fought his days and prayed Eir for his old age, as in his youth to Thor he offered mead and wine for victory and children. He had been gifted with three, a boy and two girls. No father could have been prouder.


	2. Moon-blessed

She had barged in fur-clad and furious, her royal wrath only perhaps comparable to that of a hailstorm. Anger barred hard lines above her brows, her cat-like eyes throwing lightning. She shouted that place be made for her rage. As it had become usual since Shane Iron-Fist had returned from Francia a few years ago, the Queen of Madsland was angry at her husband.

Leaving the comfortable pelts he was fighting the cold weather with, Rick rose to meet his wife. As she was allegedly bearing his child, she wasn’t supposed to be out of bed, especially in the heart of winter. Skadi had hidden the land under a tenacious blanket of ice, not even the breeding foxes dared to go outside. 

“When were you planning to tell me?!” she shouted, looking like a needle lost in her many robes. Scarcer food hadn’t been kind to her swallow-like silhouette.

“Tell you what, _eiginkona_?” the tall man sighed, running a hand in his braided hair. As his curls had gotten too long, he had allowed the servants to tie it in something more convenient rather than having to cut it. Only boys and arena-fighters wore hair as short. Once more, he had to sacrifice practicality to status.

“Don’t you dare act as if you knew nothing! Do you really think i’m stupid?!”

“Of course not, wife. I, however, am Jarl and do not have to notify you of my every activities.”

“You’re so… infuriating!!! I’m talking about the raid!”

Raising an eyebrow, Jarl Grimes raised his hand to compel a slave to bring them a drink. The old man bowed his head and quickly came back with two wooden cups filled with cold ale. The only good thing about the dead season was that ale only tasted better with the cold. 

Queen Lori darted her dark-rimmed eyes to her husband, her golden beads glinting softly in the scarce light from the candles. Rick idly thought she would have to buy more from this new candle maker in town, as his products smelled like honey instead of burnt pig. She discarded the cup, looking at him as if he had announced he intended to officially recognize a bastard. To his credit, he was one of the few Jarls he knew who had been careful enough not to end up with one. 

“And again,” stated calmly, sipping the iced ale. “This is none of your business. Yes, I’m taking Carl with me, and no, there’s nothing you can do or say to convince me otherwise. He needs to get away from the longhouse once in his life or he’ll rot.”

“What if he refuses? Shane thinks-”

“Shane is not his father,” he abruptly stopped her. “Or is there something else you want to tell me?”

Those words clasped her thin lips shut. She turned paler than the hares around her neck, clutching her dark green dress in her fragile hands. 

“He’ll stay here in my absence, needless to say I don’t want anymore rumors when I return. My people already speak enough behind my back.”

Raising up to close the dispute, the Jarl unconsciously readjusted the animal-headed torques around his wrists. Gold for dragons, silver for wolves, copper for snakes. His iron band, the simplest of all, a protection from the trolls. Not that he believed in any of those nursery tales. To him, wind was wind and no divine words were to be heard when pines rustled.

“No man in Madsland is going to follow an impious leader,” Lori viciously whispered. “Your father may have been favored by the gods, they won’t take too kindly your absence at Uppsala. Women talk, men do too. None of them will risk their luck with a traitor.”

His hand closing on the leather handle of his axe, Jarl Rick Grimes towered the impudent queen who, to her credit, barely even flinched.

“You forget your place, Lori,” he dangerously growled. 

They stared at each other. According to the by-law, they could have asked legal separation years ago, when Shane had returned. By hearsay, the child’s father was uncertain, which could have been enough. But neither Rick or Lori were fools. Divorce would have meant recognizing calumnies as the truth, which none of them could afford. Rick was a man whose word could not be broken by mere inconveniences.

“I will go as soon as the snow has begun to melt, whether you like it or not.”

The queen seemed to be ready to throw furniture at him, but suddenly she smiled an ugly smirk.

“Who will they listen to, the mad king or the gods? The Hermit told me my son would get hurt on the journey-”

“Even I could predict that!” exploded the tall man. “My bad if he pinches his finger while rowing. Staying here twiddling his thumbs will do him more harm.”

“But-”

“No, you listen to me. If it’s what I have to do to convince the men to follow me, I’ll go see him. However, I know no man able to resist the call of gold, gods or not,” he said, leaving the throne room to show he was done. 

As he felt melted ice sip between his toes, Jarl Grimes cursed Hermits for living so far from town. Just because he had been right in his predictions once or twice didn’t prove he had any gifts whatsoever. Living with so many women in the middle of the mountains could be considered to be one, though. 

He was probably a creepy elder, as Hermits often tended to be. As someone who had traveled so far South that he had seen a land of sand and eternal summer, Rick could not be impressed by senile ramblings about what the gods wanted him to be. 

Lost in a white land of and dark greens, the lone man slowly advanced. His feet cold as his hands bluing, his lips turning the lightest purple, he kept walking. Crows cackled on his path, black spots gliding silently over the snow. The gleam of his blade shot shards of light on the ominous birds, disturbing their watch over the quiet kingdom. 

Crushing snow and dirt and twigs under the soles of his leather boots, the man kept walking until noon passed over, and after dark threatened to fall. Without the Sun’s guiding beams, the man started to diverge from his path. It wasn’t until he found the first guiding stars completely opposite to where they were supposed to be that he understood he was lost. 

The forest was all but quiet, small cracks and whispers indicating unseen life in-between bushes.Only some rodents, Rick thought, no fairies nor nonsense. He knew some men who would have never wandered into the woods without an iron nail around their necks, food offerings and some gold just in case. They would have carefully ignored the bridges he walked on, fearing what could hide under. Fierce men, strong men, afraid of the unseen. He wasn’t one of them. 

Still he startled upon hearing the high-pitched call. Pressing a wrapped hand on his frantic heart, he cleared his axe with the other. Just in case. The eerie tone echoed once more in the pitch of a girl, so high even seagulls could not rival. Calming his breath, Rick started to recognize a kulning, a herd-calling song. It made no sense since the forest could not raise cattle in-between its thorny path and poor grass. 

Following the ghastly tune, he walked some more and jumped over a small current. The silvery waters poured like liquid metal, faster than he would dare to step in. No doubt good salmon swam upstream in Spring. As he kept looking for the mysterious singer, Rick came across more and more sign of habitation. Carved staves on mossy rocks, small wooden steps, and what looked like practice targets. If he hadn’t found the Hermit’s grotto, he most certainly found some hunter’s cabin who could welcome him for the night. 

Suddenly there were no trees anymore, only a clearing so vast its edges were no more than a smudge of coal on the horizon. As a promise in the falling night, the smell of freshly cooked meal hit his nostrils as, on the other edge, a door opened. Light poured on the ice of what he thought was a clearing, but revealed to be a lake. Somewhere on his right, the kulning resonated once again. A small form emerged, her light hair glowing under the moon. She seemed to dance on the ice, guiding what looked like a foal back to her home. An older woman’s voice called, and the girl answered. 

Using his own, Rick called in his turn. Having guided herds himself but lacking the pitch to perform kulning the way his sister did, he had nonetheless learned to make it boom like the loudest thunder. The girl startled, then glided swiftly on the ice, away from him. Reaching for the foal, off they went as men’s voices began to echo in their turn. It was never his intention to frighten her, but no words he could distinguish answered his apologies. As he was about to walk in the direction of the cabin to explain his situation, the freezing point of an sword dug in his back. 

“Don’t you dare,” warned a voice so low it had nothing to envy to a landslide. 

“I just seek shelter for the night,” began Rick, raising his hands to show he was no threat. “I was looking for the Seer but lost my way with the sun.”

“And you followed her for guidance, I imagine?” replied the other man with a dripping sarcasm that poorly hid it’s threat.

“I heard the kulning and saw the targets, figured a trapper must live around.”

“There is one. He would not give shelter to an armed man who followed his daughter in the night.”

“I am Jarl Richard Grimes, ruler of the Madsland. If my word is not enough, look at my arms. It is well-known my skin has been inked in far away lands, you will never see patterns like these around here.”

The man behind him scoffed. 

“Many men claim you’re a disgrace to the gods, bearing the crests of false deities on your own skin.”

“They are not symbols of faith. Just words.”

“Words have power.”

“So does the ice that’s freezing my toes. If you give me shelter I’ll make sure you’ll be rewarded for your hospitality.”

There was an instant of silence before the blade was lowered. Rick took it as a sign he would turn around and face the other man. He was younger than expected, around his age if not a few years above or under. His face bore an unnatural grace that did not lower the strength of his eyes. Glowing brighter than polished silver, they seemed for the brief instant when they met Rick’s a living exaltation to the moon’s beauty. 

“Follow me.”

Passing past the mesmerized Jarl, the hunter used his iron-tipped walking stick that Rick had mistaken for a sword to feel around the ice. His somber cape floated around his soundless steps, disguising him in the dark. Soon clouds hid all light and Rick was left with the sole tapping of the stick to guide him. Feeling irrational as only an exhausted man blinded in the middle of a frozen lake could feel, Rick started to doubt his decision to follow the man. 

He did not believe anymore, but the faint words of scary stories from his childhood seemed to echo behind him. They talked of an unnaturally beautiful people in the woods who could trick you to follow them to your death. You could mistake them for pleasure workers or disobeying daughters, and fool yourself with their promises as they ate your heart. As his weight cracked the ice, the skies cleared once again to illuminate enthralling eyes. 

“Stop walking. Two steps to your left, then three backwards and you can keep going straight. Unless you want a midnight bath.”

Carefully doing as he was asked, Rick wondered if the man was testing his limits. What if he just wanted to put space between them so that he could lose him under the next clouds? Fear seared his heart, but he seemingly had no other choice. Right when he was about to ask how long until the cabin, the door opened once again almost in his face. Painting the night in orange beams, little girl’s shadow did not hide his guide’s face, which looked even more ethereally stunning than it had before. 

“Daryl!” she jumped in his arms, revealing the belt of preys he had around his waist. “Ma has cooked a delicious mea-”

She stopped right in her tracks, her immense blue eyes staring at Rick as if he was a troll. Caked in mud and pine needles, he probably looked the part. 

“He’s our guest. Warn the others.”

“ _Hej_ , my name is Rick. It is an honor,” he announced, bowing slightly to her as if she was royalty. The simple gesture seemed to ease her, and she walked back in calling for her mother. 

Without as much as a gaze in his direction, his guide walked in. Rick took it as an invitation to do the same.


	3. Crows and hawks

The house was bigger than expected for a huntsman and his family. Neat and comfortable, a pot of stew boiling on the central heath. Two small beds sat in the back corners, in-between them a wooden ladder leading to a partial second floor. Rick guessed it had probably been a barn before the family tailored it to their needs. 

The heat was welcome to his iced bones and he envied the thick pelts laid on the floor, walls and seats. At the rough-looking table sat one of the biggest men Rick had ever seen. His bare torso bore horrendous burns which were only barely covered by tattoos of dragons and knots. His head was as bald as the rest of him, yet Rick would have never ventured to call him weak. Despite missing one hand, the huge blade attached to the stump made him look even more like one of the arena fighters Rick had seen during his journeys. 

Next to the pot, a gentle-looking woman with short gray hair stirred the stew. She was polar opposites to the tall man, petite and kind with a smile that reminded Rick of his own mother. Her daughter was hiding in her brown robes, and the Jarl noticed the girl was wearing the finest clothes of all. She wore lavender and cream finely-woven wools and pure white hare pelts around her neck. 

“Why don’t you have a seat?” offered the gray woman, guiding him toward the table. “My name is Carol, and this is my daughter, Sophia. Say hi, honey.”

The little girl first hid further behind her, then shyly looked at him and finally raised her small white hand. She had surprisingly callused fingers, the kind of marks Rick expected to find on experimented weavers. Since he had never seen any of them at the market, he guessed the clothes were their work. He thought about complimenting them later on the quality of it.

“Since they are stubborn as a horde of mules, this is Daryl and his brother Merle,” she continued while placing wooden plates of steaming stew in front of each, and one for their guest. “Please, sit.”

As he sat in front of Daryl, Rick finally began to understand. The other man never looked at him, or at anyone for that matter. His hands fluttered around to find his knife or tankard, sometimes the tall man pushed things in his direction for him to find more easily. Daryl was blind. 

Feeling his extremities painfully warm up, Rick nearly moaned when the thick stew rolled on his tongue. Vegetables and meat alike melted on his tongue. He felt a comfortable warmth spread in his chest, the strong alcohol in his tankard only helping him warm up faster. He then noticed his armbands had become so cold small bits of his skin had stuck to the metal, ripping off at any move. Sensations starting to come back to his members, he winced in pain as small drops of blood started to form beads on his skin. 

“Mom!” cried out Sophia as she followed his gaze. “He’s hurt!”

“Why didn’t you say sooner!” scolded Carol, fists on her hips. “Daryl, can you take a l- can you take care of this?”

Nodding, the man rose and opened his palm in front of Rick.

“What…”

“Hand or wrist?”

“It’s my wrists, the skin stuck to my bands.”

Daryl simply nodded, his expression impossible to read, as he instead put his hand on Sophia’s shoulder. She seemed to understand and went to fetch two small pots, which the man mixed carefully before extending his hand in Rick’s general direction again. He was slightly off, but Rick understood this time and put the uninjured part of his arm on Daryl’s palm. His skin was surprisingly warm, given he’d come inside at the same time as Rick, but his fingers were ice cold as they explored the small wounds. 

Inexplicably, Rick felt at the same time too hot and too cold. Using his free hand, Daryl applied some kind of yellowish poultice which burned like hellfire, but soon eased the pain. It smelled like grease and plants, which was not surprising. Carefully wrapping a piece of clean cloth around Rick’s wrist, Daryl did not let go his hand immediately, instead feeling it with his own fingers. 

As the older brother gave the Jarl a stare that made him want to make himself small, Daryl kept on exploring Rick’s skin. His fingers were not soft like a cripple’s, nor did they bear the small cuts and burns of housework. They were big, rough, and cobwebs of scar tissue adorned them. The rigid tips of his right index and major fingers indicated marksmanship… but that was impossible. No one in their right mind would give a bow to a blind man. 

Seeming satisfied with his inquiry, Daryl sat back in his place and started eating again. Shaking off the uncomfortable feeling of having missed something important, Rick took back his hand under the table and resumed eating. His heart was beating way too fast. What did they put in his meal? 

“‘m off to the baths,” growled the giant, not waiting for an answer before he exited the room through a back door. 

“You can go wash yourself when he’s finished”, offered the woman. “Just make sure you carry some light with you, it’s very slippery.”

It occurred to the Jarl that Merle had gone without as much as a single candle. He wondered if both brothers carried the same condition. Björn the Half-Blind was their town’s worse herder, always losing sheep he confused with rocks in the distance. Perhaps Merle was also half-blind? Was Daryl? His faithful walking stick rested close to his hip.

Carol and Sophia gave him some more food and offered their beds to him, which he refused. They already had done enough for him, he said, while Daryl went outside to join his brother. Rick noticed he, too, didn’t seem to need a candle. After his departure, the atmosphere seemed to ease up and he found in the gray woman easy conversation and camaraderie. 

At some point he found himself under the moon again, slipping in warm water from deep in the earth with delight. For all the eases of living in town, he still regretted living so far from the natural sources. Here in the quiet night, a nice blanket of snow to cool off in, he felt like truly relaxing for the first time in decades. 

Dreams came, floating before his tired eyes. First they were nothing but thin wisps of words, sounds, pictures. Breathing evenly, his heart slowed down. Small gusts of wind made the candle flutter in its iron lantern, but he didn’t see it. Something brushed his cheek. Talons grazed his exposed collarbones, wings covered his naked shoulders. A beak brushed against his nose, his parted lips. Trying to see, he found one eye. A single drop of light in the night, all-seeing and all-knowing. Hands brushed his hips underwater, igniting a fire he ignored was already burning so high. 

When one of the incredibly powerful hands parted his thighs, Rick all but obliged, baring his throat for all-consuming lips to land on. His guts coiling like the wildest snake dancing on embers, he still found himself unable to move a single inch, despite wanting nothing more. Panting shallow breaths, trying to bite back moans he was sure would be heard even across the mountains, Rick felt every muscle in his body tense up. The hands were now finer, the lips thinner, and two stars of the most incredible blue pierced his heart. 

Lifted up, his back suddenly hit the snow while he realized he couldn’t breathe anymore. Strong palms crushed his ribs. Strong jaws forced air down his throat. He felt number and number. Something stung his cheek like a slap, or was it a kiss? With a painful convulsion, water rose up to his lips, and finally cleared his lungs.

Rick realized he had been drowning. 

Shivering like a newborn calf, he struggled to wrap the cape that had been thrown on his shoulders to insulate himself from the frozen ground. It was made of the softest leather he had ever touched, more fluid than silk and lighter than snow. The pattern under his fingers mimicked feathers with such accuracy it almost seemed they had been trapped underneath.

A woman was looking at him. Her immense beauty made Rick want to bow at her feet, to avert his face for fear to tarnish her perfection. She was taller than any man, woman or elk he had ever seen, glowing as a future mother in her armored robes. On her neck shone stones so sparkling they hurt his eyes. 

“Money has been placed on your fate, little one,” she said in a voice soft as a cloud, yet strong as blood. “Don’t fall for their tricks and trust my son. It’s the only way you’ll find the sun.”

She placed her adorned hand on him, and he felt strangely comforted. Like a man on his deathbed surrounded by loving relatives would. 

“When horrible miracles will happen, when all light will die in the morning, when the worlds collide, you will believe.”

She rose, grass and wildflowers blooming in her steps. Scrambling to hide his puny nakedness, Rick presented her the coat, burning in shame to have dared to dirty it. Magnanimous, she merely smiled. 

“My only advice: in-between the eyes they’ll find solace.”

And then, as a hawk darted to the firmament, she was gone.

**Author's Note:**

> Don't forget to leave a comment if you enjoyed! Also if anyone of the Rickyl's writer group can notify the mods that I've lost my IDs that would be great :)


End file.
